Have you ever chosen not to perform a task and instead have someone else perform that task? Then you always have that one person in the room calling you lazy because you’re not the one doing it? Yea… that’s a really dumb way of thinking and I’m going to explain why this is a flawed and silly take.
THE FALLACY...
Let’s take for example Elon Musk. By this logic, Elon alone has to manufacture every single Tesla in existence. He has to manage every single employee that works there, manage every single manager, build every flamethrower, you name it! Putting it into a bigger scale, doesn’t that sound really dumb? Why would you want to do everything yourself? What if you don’t know how to do something yourself? For example, you don’t know how to make a website for your business or startup. Maybe something a bit more common like not knowing how to fix a broken pipe in your home.
Personally, I’m not quite sure what makes people think this way but I have a feeling this mentality comes from people who want to be self sufficient. Don’t get me wrong, self sufficiency is not a bad thing but when it comes to getting things done, let alone business we have to realize that at some point we need that extra help or expertise.
WHAT IS EFFICIENCY?
Since the topic is about business, at the start you may know how to do certain aspects of your startup just to get you going and get the name out there. At a certain point as mentioned earlier, you may need… a website! You’re not tech savvy, you don’t know the lingo, you don’t know where to begin. This is a great example of when you should leverage other people’s expertise to get that task done. In other words, hire someone!
At the same time, you hire someone to complete a task while you can go and finish other tasks for your business. Get more done in less time. Why spend an entire month or so learning everything there is to know about making a website? When you can just go on places like Fiverr or UpWork and find someone that can get it done in probably less time?
I will give you a personal example.
At the moment I am developing a web-based software. After researching, I planned this software to be built using Golang as the backend and regular HTML, CSS and JavaScript for the frontend – the user interface. I knew enough frontend development to kind of make a User Interface (UI) but I know it would take me quite a while to get this all done since I know very little. In the case of Golang, I had begun studying it and learning how to make websites but was progressing a bit slow since I had less time. Eventually, I had enough… It felt like too much time has gone by and decided to just hire a Golang developer. After finding one, I tried to take-on only the frontend development. However, once I started to really work with the Golang developer, they were asking me to do certain frontend tasks that I knew nothing about. Again… I was back to studying something I didn’t know how to do. Conveniently, I knew some frontend developers and instead offered them to work on the frontend. So I worked out a deal with them and 2 months later, the software is well on it’s way!
Why the hell would I spend an entire year learning both Golang and frontend development when I could just hire talents to do it for me? In the project, my responsibilities are now managing the workflow in GitLab, reviewing and verifying code, and planning – that’s it and that is something I am good at. Meanwhile, I also get to go work on my other projects. But… I’m the lazy one, right?
WHAT IS LAZINESS?
Someone that does literally nothing… If you need a website and you never try to do it yourself, never research about it, never hire someone, never talk to anyone about it. All you do is think “man… I need a website…” then continue to stuff your fat face with popcorn while playing GTA V. That is being lazy… There is a huge difference. On one hand, you get something done regardless of how – at the end of the day, the task is completed. On the other hand, nothing ever gets done.
So the next time someone tries to paint you as a lazy person for handing down responsibility to someone else either for pay or as a favor. Give them a short lesson or even share this with them!
